The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, has invited independentcurator Joshua Decter to create a multimedia project that utilizes theMCA's Collection from August 21 through November 7, 1999. Transmute is atwo-part interactive exhibition that allows the public to become both avirtual curator and a virtual artist. This is the MCA's firstinteractive exhibition employing both the MCA web page and on-sitecomputer kiosks.

Decter's curatorial statement for Transmute is now available on the MCAwebsite at www.mcachicago.org/transmute. Modified versions of both theinteractive virtual curator and virtual artist components of Transmutewill be launched on the MCA website by late summer 1999.

Decter has also invited non-collection artists Liam Gillick, JohnMiller, LOT/EK, Noritoshi Hirakawa, Grennan and Sperandio, MiltosManetas, Julia Scher, Fariba Hajamadi, Sam Samore, Mans Wrange andGerwald Rockenschaub to participate in the virtual components ofTransmute, and their contributions will be located within the on-sitemuseum interactive tour, and on the MCA website.

In the virtual curator component of the exhibition, Decter invites thepublic to reinvent the exhibition by using on-site computer kioskslocated within the actual exhibition space at the MCA; these kiosks willprovide a 3-D simulation of the gallery and the artworks. Participantscan select specific works of art, navigate these works to various partsof the virtual museum space, and reassemble their own virtual version ofthe approximately 40 work exhibition. Changes in the location ofartworks will trigger visual transformations in the virtual exhibitionspace itself.

In the virtual artist component of the exhibition, the public will havean opportunity to virtually re-create one of the exhibition's centralartworks: John Baldessari's "Fish and Ram," a work from the MCACollection. The MCA and Decter have invited the public to responddirectly to Fish and Ram by submitting a two-dimensional original image,which will be digitized and incorporated into the interactive programthat will be available for visitors to the museum's in-gallery computerkiosks, as well as via the MCA website. 30,000 invite cards have alreadybeen distributed throughout the city of Chicago, and elsewhere. Whenvisitors enter the virtual artist segment, they will see a reproductionand an outline of Baldessari's work. They can then review the submittedimages and select any image to insert into the six parts of Baldessari'sgrid, thereby reinventing Baldessari's artwork. For more information onsubmitting images to the virtual artist component of Transmute, pleasecall the Museum at 312-280-2660, or visit the MCA website.